


Bibliophilia

by Piff



Series: Bye Bye Birdy [29]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Book Lovers can be fussy, Gen, Share the Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-20 02:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1493158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piff/pseuds/Piff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thing Jack learned from Pitch, among a dozen others, is a deep love for books.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Pitch, did you re-organize the library again?” 

“It makes more sense this way.”

“That’s what you said LAST time. And the time before that. And the time before that… What’s the theme this time?”

“Targeted age, then alphabetically by topic, then the author’s last name and lastly by title unless there are duplicates then it is by age.”

“…you’re such a freak Pitch.”

Jack jumped over the back of the couch and bounced a few times on the cushions.

“Stop abusing the furniture, that couch was just replaced.”

“It’s gotta be broken in for maximum comfort levels! And don’t distract me- I can never FIND anything cause you’re always moving things around!”

Rolling his eyes from his comfortable and far less often replaced chair, “you can never find anything because you never replace them to their proper spot.”

“Cause you make it so difficult to figure out!” sticking his tongue out at the tall spirit before wriggling his shoulders deep into the couch cushion, half turned to prop his feet up on the back of the furniture piece. He opened his book, turned it right-side up, and settled in for a nice long read.

Pitch tried not to chuckle as he turned his attention to his own book. He could always tell what Jack was reading just by listening to him, and Jack didn’t even need to be reading aloud for it.

When it was a love story, Jack cooed like a dove at the sappy words and promises of forever. If it was sad, he whined like a wounded puppy. Thrillers had Jack wriggling all over the couch with the inability to sit still, as if he was trying to run and fight with the characters he was reading about. Horror stories were the funniest, the sprite climbed up onto Pitch’s lap and huddled against him with wide eyes as he drank in every terrible word. Didn’t matter if Pitch was trying to do something, an armful of Sprite is what he got.

If the book was non-fiction, information on how weather patterns worked or wood carving patterns lets say, Jack only hummed under his breathe some tuneless song. Much quieter and less interesting in Pitch’s point of view.

Of course, if Pitch was reading then none of this mattered except for the Sprite plastering himself up against the Nightmare King so as to not miss a single word. Or illustration. Or just because Pitch was reading and Jack felt left out and Pitch needed to read the words out loud now please thank you.

Pitch found himself unable to complain too much.


	2. Chapter 2

The sudden shriek of outrage had Pitch sitting up from his lazy reclining, and rather abruptly too. Wine sloshed all over his lap as the glass went from being held upright to being held sideways with the new position. 

Twinkle Toes, who had been contentedly snoozing on the back of the couch, also jerked upright at the shriek that was right next to the poor beast’s ears. That was followed by much flailing of hooves and sand as the poor thing fell right off and landed on the floor behind the furniture.

“That’s a HORRIBLE ending for a story! It’s supposed to be short and cute and then they had to RUIN it and I need it for my collection but it SUCKS! How could they DO this to CHILDREN?”

Glaring at the soggy mess he’d become and rolling his eyes, “its five pages long, how can it be so terrible that you must scream about it?”

Jack just waved the very, very thin book at Pitch, standing on the middle couch cushion. “It’s one of my favorite illustrators and they’ve BETRAYED me! Children shouldn’t have to CONFORM and be like EVERYONE ELSE to be HAPPY!”

“They aren’t exactly meant for your age,” the Boogeyman pointed out, standing and swiftly trading the wet shadow robe for another. It was easy now to take the book from Jack as it was flailed around; rescuing it from the frost that The Couch was being covered with. “I believe you were beyond this even when I first gave you lessons.”

“I didn’t snag it because of the story; I snagged it because of the -pictures-.” 

Pitch looked over the cover with the little girl and her wildly curly hair. “Then why are you so upset?”

“Because it’s HORRIBLE! This is BRAIN-WASHING for TODDLERS!”

“…right.”

There was a long pause as Pitch eyed Jack and Jack glared at the picture book.

“Just shelve it with the rest of your collection and forget about it. It’s not the end of the world to find bad literature. You can’t like -everything-.”

He held it back out to the Sprite, shaking his head as Jack muttered darkly. Really, to be upset over such a small- 

He didn’t like that look on Jack’s face.

“That horror guy you love so much has a new book out. Wrote a sequel to that hotel story with the ghosts. People trying to steal his magic now that he’s become an alcoholic like his father.”

Jack smirked at the offended expression on Pitch’s face.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack loved to share his books, very much so. He had to spread the joy of words and pictures!

And it was especially fun to gather up a heaping armful of themed books for times like now when he was visiting the Tooth Palace. Every single picture book and chapter book and adult novel he could find that featured teeth and tooth fairies and dentists had been brought along and spread out on the floor for the Baby Teeth; Jack was sitting in the middle of the nest like a proud little rooster.

Complete with feathered Mohawk.

It made him giggle, but he’d even managed to find for Tooth a romance novel about a dentist and the hunky next door neighbor. Who built toys. Or hey, what about THIS dentist falling in love with a grumpy artist? Or…

Baby Tooth was on Jack’s shoulder, peeping down at the book on his lap where it showed a large castle made entirely of teeth.

_That just doesn’t look very sanitary._

Jack had to agree. Even if the kid brushed every day, there were all the spit-germs and scraps of gum and blood. And teeth were funky shaped, how would they fit together to build a non-wobbly wall?

There was a small fit of protest from a couple other Baby Fairies as in THEIR book the teeth were recycled and placed in the mouths of infants.

No wonder teething hurt babies! Jack giggled again at the image of a tiny Fairy crawling into the gaping mouth to wedge the tooth in. …okay he cringed a little too because that was just –ow-.

A handful more were reading together a ‘junior novella’ about a football jock forced into a tutu to preserve belief in small children. Or that’s what Jack was getting out of the snippets he caught.

“Hey, do the teeth have to be in their box for the memory thing to work?” he poked Baby Tooth in the side with a finger.

She had to think about it for a moment.

_The box helps the memories focus. Before we had boxes, they were much more clouded and uncertain._

“Huh. Oh look, they even paved the road with teeth. Imagine walking on all those sharp little points... Oh! Teeth Golems! Tooth!” Now he was speaking to the actual fairy, waving her over.

Awwwww, was Tooth BLUSHING over the books he had so carefully chosen for her?

“Can we use some teeth and make a golem?”

“…what? No!”


	4. Chapter 4

Pitch had not been home for very long before a very grumpy looking Jack shoved a book at him.

The words stamped into the thick leather binding were nearly invisible, but Pitch didn't need to read them to know what it was.

"YOU," snapping at the taller Spirit, "need to put these in a better hiding spot! This is YOUR fault!"

Hard to argue with the logic of a teenager.

...unless you were reasonably sane.

"You should not have been snooping in rooms that were expressively forbidden," Pitch pointed out dryly, tucking the magic book under his arm.

"You shouldn't have made them forbidden! That just makes it even MORE tempting!"

Pitch should have been horrified, or furious, but... he was Pitch.

And Jack had fox ears. Big, triangular, white fox ears perched on the top of his head.

As the boy turned and stomped away, he had a very fluffy tail too.

Pitch would show Jack how to fix this disrupted transformation, with the very book Jack had thrust at him, but not just yet.

He had to stop laughing first.


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey! Hey Hollow! HOLLOW! HEY!”

Jack tackled the masked spirit, taking both of them to the ground. He’d ask later what Hollow was doing in Jack’s edge of the woods.

“OW! What the hell Jack!?” 

“I FOUND A BOOK!”

“Get off of me!”

“Not until you look at the brilliance that is this book!”

Hollow squirmed but found himself well pinned to the dirt. For all that Jack weeghed as much as a half-empty bucket of candy, Hollow couldn’t move. 

“Fiiiiiine. What book?”

Jack shoved the book into Hollow’s face, leaning over the boy’s back until the winter sprite was half upside down. Grinning madly, “50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do.”

“…okay, that looks kinda neat. Now get off of me!”

Jack just dropped to the side so that they were now laying on the ground together, shoulder to shoulder. Holding the book over his head and flipping it open to the middle: “It says boys should lick a 9 volt battery to see what it feels like to be shocked. And that we should drop things from high places to see what happens to various objects. And how to flatten pennies on train rails.”

“Why would we want to make pennies flat?”

“Iunno. Know anyone with a microwave?”

“No…”

“Okay, so it’s for the little mortal boys but still. Has some stuff I never knew was dangerous.”

“Everything you do is dangerous.”

“You should lick a frozen pole.”

“I did that last year.”

“But we didn’t RECORD it in the book! See? A whole page to write notes on everything we do!”

“…bet we could make a better book.”

“50 Dangerous Things for Spirits?”

“Could be fun. Like you should try at least once to break into the Warren.”

“Or offer a ToothFairy candy.”

“Throw glitter at a Nightmare.”

“Not give out candy on Halloween.”

“See? We could make a MUCH better book than that thing.”

“…so you don’t want to lick a battery?”

“Does that really shock people?”

“Book says so.”

“ Well… could be interesting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay peeplings, this is the last bit I had in mind for Biblio, but I think I'm going to leave it open-ended for later ideas. Keep the book-related snippets in one place. Sound good?


End file.
